


winter queen, wolf queen

by alamorn



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-30
Updated: 2013-07-30
Packaged: 2017-12-21 20:32:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/904590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alamorn/pseuds/alamorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruling is about telling stories, and Sansa's the best storyteller of her generation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	winter queen, wolf queen

She takes the North for her husband so she won’t have to take a man. She is done with men, and that does not seem like to change. They call her many things, her people, her communal spouse. Ice Queen, Wolf Queen, Virgin Queen, Queen of the North, the Lady of Winterfell. They sing songs of her, and she lets them, tilts her head and widens her blue eyes and curves her lips into a smile. They love her, her people. They loved her when she appeared like a thief in the night and stole back Winterfell. They loved her when she ordered the execution of Ramsay Snow, and when she stood at the block and let blood spatter her gown. She did not swing the sword, but she handed it to her sworn shield, the burned old dog no one likes or trusts. They allow him in their midsts, for her sake.

They loved her when she drew together the broken houses, and teased and smiled and danced, and her red hair flowed. They loved her for her guile and her grace and her thin white hands. Oh, there is no doubt that she is loved. But she cannot quite forget the way they forgot her, the houses who refused to parlay for her, trade for her, try in any way to free her. They would have let her rot in the keeping of the Lannisters, her dear people.

She loves them. The North is part of her. To hate them would be to hate a leg, an arm, a gaping, hungry mouth. The North is a child, pretending at fierceness and practicality, but Sansa knows how to sing and coddle stubborn children into compliance. They love her because she is a Stark, and because she makes them. Who, after all, would hate the Lady, sweet and kind, merciful and just, with the looks of her fierce mother and the heart of her noble father? She rewards the Manderlys richly, and the Umbers and Mormonts. The Karstarks kowtow and beg and eventually she is gracious. The Boltons -- well. She is merciful and just, and that is not enough to save them.  
But Sansa is no Tywin, and the songs about what happened to the Boltons are not authored in her presence, or played where she can hear, but if a rebellious house happens to hear one while out riding, well, she can hardly be faulted for that. 

And though they call her ice, wolf, virgin, she is none. She is made of sweet singing blood and sturdy bone. She lost her wolf, and only borrows her sister’s. She rides in the minds of dogs, and birds, and, only when asked, in the mind of a man who calls himself dog. As to the virginity, well. She may not wish marriage, but she is a woman grown, and desires as such. And she always gets what she desires.

So she sits her throne and rules by metaphor and allusion. She creates in the minds of her people a winter-boned woman, turns her red hair into flame to burn back the night, uses her height to stand as a wall -- and anyone who sees into the depths of those Tully blue eyes and sees the laughter and the sweetness and the rage is invited to join. Laugh with her. It is not a cruel joke, just a story made life, and what is she to do but meet the expectations of her people? You are her confidant. Don’t you love her for making you such?

(Two know the secret. A lean shadow of a girl-woman who flits from Wall to Winterfell and back again, and leaves Nymeria at Sansa’s side. “To protect,” she says. “To see,” she means. “To help, to support.” The wolf is as much the story as the queen herself. And a man, huge and burned, and changed by her love and her stories. He stands behind her throne, and takes her crown when she grows weary, lays it not un-gently on a table, unbraids her hair, and listens to her sing and laugh. He knows what she has made herself into, and what from, and it makes him love her all the more.

The secret is, it’s not a lie. It’s not a story. It’s not elaboration, or trickery, or sleight-of-hand. That is what she was taught, but she put it aside. She loves her people, and wishes only to serve them, and they require exactly what she is. All the best stories are true.)


End file.
